Baby @ 30 Weeks and 3 Days

The countdown now is about 7 weeks to go before my c-sect. That is, if everything goes to plan and the last placenta abruptio with Faith was a one-time only experience in my lifetime.

A huge part of me is looking forward. I've puked so much in this pregnancy than I ever did with Faith and in my entire lifetime. Even though I'm in my 3rd trimester.

Yet, each puking session is not a result of any prolong morning sickness. Instead, I've developed some extreme backaches since the early days of my 2nd trimester. Sitting for long periods becomes a trial and some sort of tribulations. On good days, I can put in a full day work and am none the worse for wear except that I need to head straight for the bed after I reach home to give my aching back a break.

On other days, I start feeling nauseous around the afternoon of my full-day workdays and it inevitably results in a porcelain-hugging session in the ladies. Every bout of these puking session leaves me weak and again, I'll be zapped of all energy and appetite at the end and would pretty much head straight home to bed for the rest of the night.

There's just no predicting whether the body can take the long periods of sitting down. I've taken to keeping my nausea pills, in addition to my seaband (it was great at combating my early morning sickness but not for these backache-induced nausea) in my wallet.

Apart from the puking and the extreme backache, I just can't seem to dredge up as much energy compared to the first pregnancy. Maybe its age, maybe its the fact that each pregnancy is different. Regardless, I've taken to a lot of bed rest whenever I can.

Poor Louis and my mom ends up taking on most of the task of care-giving and entertaining Faith, especially on my work-days.

With 7 weeks left and the festive CNY period around the corner, I'm also feeling jittery and apprehensive too. There's a lot of backlog grant memo work that I haven't been able to clear as I was involved in corporate planning exercise. Sure, I'm not indispensable and I only work part-time. However, I've got a great boss and a bunch of understanding colleagues who have been very helpful and accommodating of my part-time arrangements.

So, I hope to be able to clear as much work as I can before I have to either quit or take a leave of absence. It is my intention to attempt to apply for a leave of absence again. But if I can't, then my last alternative would be quit my job at the end of my maternity leave.

Back to baby @ 30 weeks.

This week, the check-up was a bit more encouraging in that I've put on nearly 2 kg in 2 weeks, compared to last month when I only put on a miserable 300g in my 6th month(Yep, you read right! Its not a typo.).

My total weight gain so far is about 7 kg and I've got another 7 more weeks or so to go to hopefully ply on a bit more weight - or rather, that baby would be able to fill up better and I'm praying fervently that I wouldn't end up with another low birth weight baby again. With Faith, I only had a total weight gain of 8 kg.

Yet, as I have all this considerations in my mind, today's check-up also put puts things in perspective for us as to what's really important.

Becos of my previous placenta abruptio, there's a 5% change of it re-occurring and no one can predict if and when it ever happen again, which time period would it occur again.

My ob/gyn shared that over the weekend, a colleague of his delivered a stillborn baby of a woman who was 36 weeks along and had placenta abruptio. She had no signs of bleeding and it was too late by the time they discovered it.

As a mother and as someone who had gone through a placenta abruptio, it leaves me with a sense of great sadness for the woman and her stillborn child. More, it serves as a reminder that while most pregnancy ends in a joyous celebration of life, for me, there's always an element of uncertainty and risk involved.

For all that Louis and I sometimes wonder whom the baby will resemble or whether she would be a normal weight-ranged newborn, the truth of the matter is that they matter less than the healthy and safe delivery for both me & baby.

We certainly trust our ob/gyn implicitly in his experience and skills. What's left really is faith and hope that things would turn out better this round

We had faith the last time and were thankfully able to deliver Faith, safe & healthy. We can only put our faith and trust once again in our ob/gyn and the higher order up there for a 2nd time and pray for a safe & healthy delivery experience.

Baby @ 21 Weeks

Its a girl! We are going to have another girl.

We had our detailed scan this morning and the gynae pronounced that baby will be a girl.

Sure... we don't mind either ways, although it would indeed be nice to have a pair of kids with mix gender.

This way, there are several pros immediately. Firstly, the name has long been decided. Way before we planned for #2, we kinda decided on another name for a girl. To date, we are still clueless about a name for a boy.

Secondly, there's economies of scale - I've got lots of Faith's clothes neatly packed away in wardrobes. Clothes that are mostly in good condition. We might not need to buy too many, although we still need to buy a few new pieces e.g. for the home trip from the hospital and for the 1-month baby shower.

Thirdly, girls are sweet. Faith is... so we hope #2 would be too.

The detailed scan indicated that all is fine with the little one. I'm a little jittery myself though. I'm nearly 5 months along and my total weight gain so far is a miserable 2 kilos. Jittery becos I only ply on 8 kg the last time with Faith and she came out so small at birth.

Most certainly, the tummy looks a lot bigger this time around. I think the size of it is closer to how big I was with Faith at about 6-7 months. As much as I hate to admit it, I think some of that 2 kg weight gain might have gone the way of my hips and butt cos my maternity jeans feel snug when I put them on.

So, if I've put on weight, my tummy is bigger this time around (I'm sure its becos the tummy's less elastic this time) and I've only gained a miserable 2 kg, I'm wondering if its going to be another low birth weight baby despite best efforts and measures to work around it.

Oh well... as always, the key is as long as mum and baby have a safe and uneventful delivery. There's really not much I want to ask for at this stage :)